drumbo
08-25-06, 01:40 PM
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0608/lagoon_croman_nostars.jpg (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0608/lagoon_croman_full.jpg) Blue Lagoon
Credit & Copyright (http://www.rc-astro.com/ copyright.html): Russell Croman (http://www.rc-astro.com/about.html)
Explanation: Stars come and go as you slide your cursor over this engaging image of M8, aka the Lagoon Nebula (http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m008.html). Of course, the nebula is itself a star-forming region (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030908.html), but the stars that appear and disappear here include background and foreground stars that by chance lie along the same line of sight. In this "for fun" (http://www.rc-astro.com/php/displayImage.htm?id=1169) comparison of two nearly identical digital images, the stellar point sources were removed from one image (http://www.rc-astro.com/php/displayImage.htm?id=1168) by computer processing to leave only the diffuse emission from the glowing gas clouds. In both pictures, red emission (H-alpha emission (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050930.html)) from atomic hydrogen dominates the cosmic lagoon's visible light, but narrow band (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060324.html) filters were used to record the image data and map the hydrogen emission to green hues, with emission from sulfur atoms in red and oxygen in blue. The lovely (http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/ Compare_m8_Med.htm) Lagoon Nebula spans about 30 light-years at an estimated distance of 5,000 light-years toward the constellation Sagittarius (http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/sgr/index.html).
Source (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060825.html)
Credit & Copyright (http://www.rc-astro.com/ copyright.html): Russell Croman (http://www.rc-astro.com/about.html)
Explanation: Stars come and go as you slide your cursor over this engaging image of M8, aka the Lagoon Nebula (http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m008.html). Of course, the nebula is itself a star-forming region (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030908.html), but the stars that appear and disappear here include background and foreground stars that by chance lie along the same line of sight. In this "for fun" (http://www.rc-astro.com/php/displayImage.htm?id=1169) comparison of two nearly identical digital images, the stellar point sources were removed from one image (http://www.rc-astro.com/php/displayImage.htm?id=1168) by computer processing to leave only the diffuse emission from the glowing gas clouds. In both pictures, red emission (H-alpha emission (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050930.html)) from atomic hydrogen dominates the cosmic lagoon's visible light, but narrow band (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060324.html) filters were used to record the image data and map the hydrogen emission to green hues, with emission from sulfur atoms in red and oxygen in blue. The lovely (http://www.mistisoftware.com/astronomy/ Compare_m8_Med.htm) Lagoon Nebula spans about 30 light-years at an estimated distance of 5,000 light-years toward the constellation Sagittarius (http://www.hawastsoc.org/deepsky/sgr/index.html).
Source (http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060825.html)